Princess of Thorns

Princess of Thorns

by Stacey Jay

As a child, Aurora's kingdom is overrun by ogres who are set on consuming the souls of humans and taking over the world.  In order to protect her children, Aurora's mother bequeaths her fairy gifts upon her daughter as she dies.  Now an orphan, Aurora and her brother run to the fairies to grow and train.

Now ten years later, Aurora's brother has been captured by the ogres and she is running out of time to save him.  Unfortunately, she's can't do it on her own and she sometimes rushes into bad decisions, so she walks right into a trap.

Luckily for her, she's rescued by a prince on a quest for a princess.  Unluckily for her, he's actually looking for her because he needs to get married, and quickly.

In order to rescue her brother and stop the prophecy from coming true, Aurora must disguise herself as her own brother and keep her rescuer from suspecting anything.  That means lying to him, even when he earns the truth, and keeping her own feelings to herself in order to protect him.

Her only hope now is that she's not too late.

Final thoughts:  Interesting story that combines a few fairy tales into one.  This is not strictly a retelling of a fairy tale since it's Sleeping Beauty's daughter who is the main character, but it does have some nice moments.  We also see the eleventh prince from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans" and we get a few moments with Little Red Riding Hood.  The romance is a little odd mostly because of the way the two characters often seem to just anger each other and lie all the time, but it does make a bit of sense.  In the end, it's a cotton candy book that's mostly fluff, with no real depth, but still some fun nonetheless.

Rating: 3/5